


around the world and back to you

by laughtales



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, longing and idiocy because they're both dumb and dramatic and can't communicate normally, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25065178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughtales/pseuds/laughtales
Summary: Felix receives a series of blank postcards with no sender and no return address.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 92





	around the world and back to you

**Author's Note:**

> midnight brainworms wouldn't let me sleep until i wrote it

When the first one arrives, Felix nearly throws it in the trash.

The generic postcard of a busy street corner and a quaint café, olden buildings and oil lamps that glowed at dusk, looks remarkably like the ad for a travel agency. He makes it all the way to the recycling bin when he turns it over and freezes, staring at a stamp in currency he doesn’t recognize, a foreign postmark, and his address in penmanship that could only belong to one person.

His name is scrawled in half print, half cursive, the _i_ curling into the _x_ with a flourish. Even the easy way the letter is crossed asymmetrically and off-center is familiar. There’s no sender, no message, no return address, and yet, he knows with absolute certainty that it’s from Sylvain.

Felix stares at the blank postcard with a complicated swirl of emotions, confusion, anger, relief, but rising above all of them are frustration and yearning.

The last time he’d seen or heard from Sylvain, they’d fought over something so stupid, Felix can’t even remember what it was about. They hadn’t officially broken it off, but it sure felt like it when Sylvain kissed him goodbye and texted him _I’ll always love you_ the next morning before boarding a plane without telling anyone where he was going.

It’s one week later, one week of misery and worry and regret, one week’s worth of unsent texts, one week of total silence and no idea where in the world Sylvain has gone and if he’s okay, when he finds the postcard tucked inside his mailbox and his heart aches at the familiar handwriting.

He wants throw it out, rip it up, pretend he never saw it in petty anger but something is better than nothing and the postcard ends up stuck to his refrigerator.

Another one arrives a few days later with a different postmark, equally foreign and equally frustrating. This one has a picture of a sunny beach with crystalline waters and sparkling sand. His name written with the same flourish. Still no message, still no return address. He gives up on that second part since it becomes apparent that Sylvain’s travelling his way around the world with no place to call home and no discernible destination in mind.

The beach ends up next to the café and he doesn’t spend several seconds every morning staring, wishing for a way to tell the sender he thinks they’re beautiful.

The third comes one week later and Felix has given up on a message. A white and red lighthouse stands stark against rocky cliffs and navy seas. This one ends up next in the line across his fridge and he spends an afternoon writing dates and thoughts on post-its and sticking them to the blank message-less space.

When Ingrid and Dimitri show up at his apartment with everyone from their little high school group (minus Sylvain) in tow for drinks and a movie, no one comments outwardly on the new and colorful décor in his kitchen.

He only realizes that Ingrid had posted a picture of them drinking at his dining table, fridge and postcards in plain view, when a black and white picture of an old cathedral arrives four days later and Felix’s eyes widen when he flips it over to examine the postmark.

_You kept them._

The shock of a message, albeit nothing else, not even a signature, stuns him and he finds himself running over the letters with his finger and tracing the words _of course_ over and over wishing he could actually send the message to Sylvain. He only briefly considers actually using his Instagram account but decides it'd seem too desperate and telling. Instead he writes the words on a post-it and sticks it to the postcard before affixing it to his collection.

The next card comes in a small parcel that Felix eyes in confusion before tearing open. There’s a pack of magnets with a very particular theme – cats and swords – and Felix stares at them long and hard because where in the world did Sylvain find something like that?

 _Saw these at a market and thought of you_ is written on the back of some castle garden.

Felix carefully unpacks them and replaces all of his old boring fridge magnets with cats curled around ornamental blades.

A rainbow Ferris wheel and the words _Miss you, wish you were here_ appears in his mailbox three days later.

 _Miss you too_ ends up on the back on a light blue post-it.

One month after the first postcard, a familiar-looking scenery in his mailbox stops his breath – snow-kissed mountains against a backdrop of blue skies, just like the ones from their family homes. Felix holds his breath and turns the card over with shaking hands, unable to prevent the sound that escapes him when he sees the domestic postmark.

_See you soon maybe?_

He’s had a couple drinks by the time he’s taking the postcards down and staring at them as though the force of his glare and the strength of his longing would be enough to bring his boyfriend – boyfriend? Something about that feels vaguely off to Felix’s alcohol-dulled mind but it feels right in his heart and that’s all he cares about right now. He wants it, him, to be enough for Sylvain to come home even one day faster.

Felix wakes Saturday morning to a ringing in his ear and a lingering headache. When he answers his phone and gets an earful of Ingrid yelling at him for being late to brunch, he hangs up on her and text her a hasty _on my way_. Five minutes, a second-day hoodie, and half-brushed hair later, he’s out the door and pulling the messy strands into a bun.

Felix freezes, full stop, in complete and utter disbelief when he sees a redheaded figure about to stuff something into his mailbox. Tangled hair and wrinkled clothes be damned, Felix calls his name and crashes into his arms when he turns, postmark-less envelope still in hand.

“You’re home,” he says, pulling Sylvain down by the collar to kiss him, sinking further into his arms when he brings them around his waist to pull him closer.

Sylvain replies against his lips, disbelieving, comforting, adoring. “I’m home.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's a short little epilogue but it doesn't really fit with the style/vibe of the fic and it's too long to put as a note here so it's over on [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/laughtales_)instead if you want to check it out or come say hi.  
> 
> 
> [ Epilogue](https://twitter.com/laughtales_/status/1279315032397041665?s=20)


End file.
